Particularly in areas which many people utilize, theft of sanitary paper frequently occurs. This causes inconvenience to both the user and supplier. Most of the solutions proposed so far to prevent or lessen this problem have been ineffective or inconvenient to carry out. Generally, such solutions involve the use of locks. Locks, however, can be forced and hence damaged as well as require keys which can be lost.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,792,822 describes an anti-theft core-equipped support for paper comprising a cylindrical steel spindle on which is mounted a core having several sharp teeth which project and enter the paper-roll core. The total length of the cylindrical steel spindle is at least equal to the length of the paper-roll core. The system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,792,822, however, has several drawbacks. In particular, the system cannot be practically used with core-free paper rolls. If a core-free paper roll were put in place on such a system, much of the paper roll would tear or else the device could not operate in an anti-theft manner due to excessive play between the cylindrical spindle and the hollow roll part.
On the other hand, core-free rolls are increasingly used, especially for sanitary paper. Such core-free rolls of sanitary paper are advantageously made in the manner described in French Patent No. 2,554,799.
Another problem with systems currently used is that excessive roll unwinding, which results in waste and frequent reloading, occurs. The device described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,792,822 also fails to address the latter drawback.